


in pink

by tyrellis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura Central, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18852847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrellis/pseuds/tyrellis
Summary: on the anniversary of her world's demise, allura reflects on the family she once had - and the one that surrounds her now[written forcosmic dust zine]





	in pink

**Author's Note:**

> this is a piece i wrote for the wonderful [cosmic dust zine !!!!!!!](https://cosmicdustzine.tumblr.com/) considering how poorly vld handled character development as well as lgbt rep, the mods decided to make a family focused zine for which all proceeds go to the [true colors united fund](https://truecolorsunited.org/) which aims to help homeless lgbt youth. please consider donating and checking out the zine !!! the art is all absolutely beautiful and so creative and the other writers' pieces are there too !!!
> 
> this is my piece, which i was able to publish like two weeks ago but kept forgetting about... im so sorry. it's an allura-focused fic that reflects on her past and her present. i tried not to make it too sad bc the zine is meant to be happy, but i wanted to focus on allura and i wanted to like...be realistic to her struggle but still have like. a happy ending. so please read and enjoy!!!!

The last friend Allura made on Altea was a boy named Jonas.

She never knew him particularly well. He always seemed so far away - the son of the baker, perhaps? - and so solitary, ever tucked away into a corner of the library, reading.

His presence in her life must've been...what, fifteen decaphoebs? Yet she only knew his name three phoebs, had asked, quietly, when she intruded upon his spot to ask for some assistance in finding a book.

He had brown hair, brown skin, brown eyes. Blue marks on his cheekbones, a sprinkle of freckles that sometimes glowed across his nose. He'd always been so quiet, but rose immediately to help her find the book, and gestured to the armchair opposite his when he retrieved it for her. So they'd sit, every movement, sometimes every day, at his table in the corner and read for a few hours. It helped clear her mind.

She never told him this, and then he was gone.

Now more than ever, she can't seem to stop thinking of him. How she longs for those hours, those oases of relaxation. There's hardly time spare for them these days. Running around, contacting every ally she can get ahold of, arranging meetings, arranging plans, arranging some kind of  _ rebellion _ . Organising the paladins' training with Coran, inspecting the week's menu with Hunk, cleaning the weapons with Keith. So few hours in the day, she can't waste one  _ reading _ .

She does waste hours, though.

Only a few, at night, when no one should miss them. She has...not nightmares, not terrifying dreams...something crueler, old memories drenching her cold in her sleep.

Shiro likes to sit in an observation deck after nightmares. So Allura sits with him, and when she glances at him in the silence, sometimes his features are overlaid with brown hair, brown skin, brown eyes.

Only sometimes.

\--

A girl named Delilah was one of their scientists' daughters. A couple years older than Allura, she had green marks that matched her eyes, and everyone would point it out and notice her for them.

Allura, when she had hours to waste, spent so many of them staring at those green marks, green eyes. During lessons in the lab, she always kept an eye on the bench where Delilah worked, always the first to volunteer if she ever needed a hand. In the end, those green marks are all Allura remembers, the marks and the eyes and the way she would smile.

She did have such a beautiful smile...

"...lura? Allura, are you, uh, listening?"

"Huh?" she replies, and lifts her head from where it had dropped onto her propped up palm. "What? Of course, I-"

"It's okay," Hunk says, and smiles. That smile, Allura thinks, so infectious, so real. "I just wanted to ask you something, cause, you know, Coran and I picked up some really great stuff on that junkyard planet, and I was actually thinking about improving this function right here." He opens up some kind of journal on the table before her, pointing at several labelled sketches of one of the castleship's most vital components. "So, I could either do this" - and he points at one sketch - "which will improve speed and agility, or I could do it like this, which gives our particle barrier an extra buff, but it slows the ship down by four percent when active."

Blinking at the sketches presented before her, Allura finds herself instead examining Hunk's neat handwriting, every label underlined with a small explanation of its use beneath it. Well-researched, she thinks vaguely, the words blurring before her. So different from the holopads she's used to, the paper gives way beneath her touch, the page folding over easily as she turns to the next. More sketches, dozens of them spread across the pages, ranging from various components of the ship to detailed, shaded drawings of the Yellow Lion's controls, labelled with short suggestions, Yellow's own thoughts noted beneath. Grinning, she barely registers Hunk's laughter in the background as she thumbs through, only coming to a halt when a drawing of her own face appears.

Then a drawing of Lance. Then Pidge, Keith, Shiro, even Coran. All seven of them across two pages, mini-portraits with their names inscribed beneath.

"That's uh, that's..." Hunk says, and when she looks up he's still smiling, his eyes soft on the drawings. "Yeah, I, uh..." His eyes wander away for a moment, his smile wavering before returning in full force, and he turns the page again to reveal four more portraits, two women and two identical looking girls, with their names again below.

"Oh," Allura says, heart squeezed tight in her chest. Hunk doesn't have to say it for her to understand, but he does anyway.

"My family, from home. If I draw them in my sketchbook, it's like I have them with me all the time."

" _ Oh _ ," Allura says again, and smiles, closing the sketchbook and handing it back to Hunk. "Thank you, Hunk. Please do the second upgrade - we don't really move when we're using the particle barrier, anyway."

"Of course, princess," he says, waves at her, and leaves.

The sketchbook had been big, full of extra papers, all folded tidily, and important things written in various colours. It reminds Allura, just a little, of that green-eyed, green-marked girl, and her big paper notebook full of art and science that Allura had almost forgotten.

\--

Keith does whatever he wants. For a long time, the more rational part of Allura had despised this, his refusal to follow rules, to comply with strategies, to do what he was told. In missions he fights whoever he feels like fighting and goes wherever he wants to go; within the castleship, he trains outside of set hours, without the rest of them, and bickers with Lance no matter how many paladin bonding trials they do.

For a long time, Allura pretends like she  _ only _ despises it. Even when she admires it. Even when she wishes she could be that bold, that sure of herself on the battlefield. She only pretends to be. It isn’t real, honest,  _ instinctual _ . Keith sees a situation on the field and he just  _ knows _ how to plunge in and take control of the fight, despite any danger. It’s not the smartest or most strategic manner of dealing with it, but that’s what everyone else is for. The Red Paladin is always a hothead.

Her instincts are better-suited for teamwork, not solo missions, that’s all. Alone, she’s too uncertain, with no one to help if something goes wrong, but Keith doesn’t care about that. His life is a worthwhile sacrifice so long as another’s is saved.

It’s noble.

And stupid.

Allura can’t afford to be stupid, so she’s smart, she discusses everything with her adviser, and she makes  _ good _ plans.

Plans, however, can go wrong. Solo missions - Keith’s favourite - are only allowed if Coran and Allura are on call with the outgoing paladin the entire time. Allura’s own instincts never kick in as she watches Keith navigate another galra base, but sometimes she can imagine the things Greta would’ve said to her, if she were watching.

Greta was everything Allura  _ wasn’t _ , which is why they were such good friends. She preferred flails and maces to daggers and swords, but Allura imagines much of the advice would still be the same:  _ hear everything, move quickly but quietly, in hallways always look behind you, and never turn a corner blind _ .

Keith follows these rules without even asking. Without even thinking to ask, because these rules that Allura had to memorise over years are just common sense for Keith. He already knows. He’s always known, somehow, exactly what to do in dangerous situations.

It’s just impressive. He’s always alert, eyes open, tracking the area around him. Listening out for anything useful, moving like a shadow, taking out every foe that appears.

It’s a good job. When the mission is successfully completed, Allura says, “Great work, Greta,” and pretends like it was just an accident.

\--

Becoming a paladin would’ve been more exciting, had it not happened in the circumstances of Shiro’s disappearance. Allura had always dreamt of it - living up to her father, taking up arms in his name, bonding with a lion - but when five aliens appeared in her castle, it seemed obvious to her that a paladin she was not meant to be.

And here she is. A paladin.  _ The _ Blue Paladin. One of them, anyway. Despite training them everyday, she hadn’t realised how taxing, how  _ terrifying _ the whole ordeal could be. From scrambling into her suit to navigating the fast-travel accessway to actually forming Voltron, the mental strength it took and the subsequent exhaustion, how sometimes, in the mindmeld, she can feel the other paladins’ pulses racing as fast as her own.

It gets to her, sometimes. It’s all too much - being a princess, rebel leader and blue paladin all at one - and though she tries not to let it affect missions, it’s hard.

Sometimes, they’re in a situation she can’t plan her way through. Sometimes a galra base traps all five paladins in separate areas, and the only way they can talk is through their comms.

“Surely we can just- keep going forward and find each other?” Allura tries, shoulders heavy and eyes grim as she scans the area she’s in - some kind of laboratory, with doors across from where she is and absolutely no other exit. “It can’t be that hard to find each other.”   
  
“I don’t know, princess,” Shiro murmurs, communicating not from the Black Lion but instead the castleship, still resting from a previous mission. “The risk of multiple enemies overwhelming each paladin is too great to risk… Coran…?”

“We might have to attack the base from here,” Coran says, frowning at the datapad in his hand. “Once they realise what I’m doing, however, they could begin attacking you all whilst taking down the ship…”   


_ This is hopeless _ , Allura thinks, but doesn’t dare say it.

“Look,” Lance says, and Allura blinks at the certainty in his voice. “This isn’t hopeless. The castleship still has the element of surprise - you need to figure out what weapons can overwhelm the galra base before they can fight back and then  _ surprise _ them.”   
  
“Yeah!” Pidge says. “If you take out whatever’s powering them, they won’t be able to attack the ship, and we’ll be able to move around undetected to find a solution.”

“And?” Coran says. “What will you all do?”   
  
“We move slow,” Lance says before Allura can even consider the question. “I have no enemies in sight, but that doesn’t mean they’re not watching us. If we move too fast, too many galra may converge on too many of us at the same time - we need to avoid galra, draw minimal fire, and find each other before the castleship can move against the base.”   
  
“If we move  _ fast _ ,” Keith counters, “then we can  _ kill _ the galra in our way, reach each other way faster, and be able to get out while the castleship distracts the base.”   
  
“It’s not safe enough,” Lance says. “There are too many galra - and what if the castleship fires near us? I want to find you guys too, but we need to think carefully. Okay, Keith?”   


Allura’s gaze, which had been wandering the room as Lance suggested, returns to her wrist where the screen has popped up, showing Keith sighing and nodding, dragging his hands over his face. Lance, despite being right, doesn’t brag or mock Keith; he simply watches, unsmiling and serious, as Keith agrees.

“Allura?” he adds, and suddenly his features meld together with someone far older than Lance - teal hair, not brown, and skin darker even than Allura’s own. Lance isn’t as tall, as aged, as experienced, but something in his voice and those patient eyes is so familiar, so close to her heart. The person, the memory, is long gone.

But for a second-

“Allura, do you… Do you have a better idea?” Lance asks, and the image dissipates.

“What? No. No, that sounds...great, Lance, thank you. Is everyone in agreement?”   
  
The paladins chip in, Hunk and Pidge toss some tips to Shiro and Coran about how to take out the power, and Allura continues, alone.

Ringing in the back of her mind, however, forever guiding her, is the instruction of her teacher, a man, perhaps Coran’s age, with careful brown eyes and a voice that could soothe the soul of the world.

She never thought she would hear a voice like that again, speaking so calmly in the face of such danger, creating a plan out of air and easing everyone’s worries when Allura likely would’ve spent too long weighing up hypothetical pros and cons. Allura never thought someone would do it as  _ effortlessly _ as Dr. Obi did.

But Lance did it  _ so  _ effortlessly. Like it was natural, easy as breathing. Like the kind of person, Allura safely reasons, that Dr. Obi himself might be proud of.

\--

Pidge definitely isn’t their best fighter, or even their faster, but she fights harder and dirtier than anyone else. Maybe that’s surprising, considering how Keith literally throws himself into enemies, or how sometimes Shiro fights like it’s the only reason he has to stay alive, but Pidge is smaller, weaker, and less trained.

So she fights  _ harder _ . She learns all the tricks she can, spends secret vargas with Allura on the training deck trying to figure out all the quick, sneaky ways she can take Allura down.

She works hard. Allura’s proud of her, of her progress. It’s just sometimes, during those secret vargas, she can’t help but think of others students she trained, other friends she fought. Anita was a girl who lost her arm in her early teens, and she spent quintants training with Allura, with anyway, to regain her balance, to fight like anyone else,  _ better _ than anyone else.

That same determination, that refusal to be underestimated or pitied, is so strong that sometimes Allura can’t stand it. Her vision blurs, Pidge’s left arm is gone, or she’s taller, or her hair is far thicker and curlier than Pidge’s hair could ever be capable of.

The way they fight is different. Different weapons, different strategies. Pidge likes to hop around during a fight, keep an enemy guessing; she’ll blast Allura with her laser gun form then jump in close to give her a shock with her other bayard form, then back again, and again, and again. She doesn’t hesitate, she doesn’t wait for Allura to strike or react or jump back herself; she keeps hitting, and  _ that _ , Allura knows, is  _ just _ like Anita.

But Pidge is never more like Anita than when she’s seeking out her brother. Voraciously consuming data from any galra ship they visit, striding in to a meeting with a rebel base with her list of questions to determine if they know Matt, checking every planet, every moon, every possible avenue that might contain the answer.

Somehow, the answer never comes. But Pidge never gives up.

As with Anita, Allura wouldn’t expect her to. And she doesn’t want her to.

Somehow, if Pidge gave up, Allura, too, would be forced to give something up, too. As long as Pidge keeps fighting and searching and trying, Allura can help, can feel that burning fire of determination herself.

\--

It’s very quiet on the anniversary of her planet’s destruction, but Allura wonders if it isn’t just her, seeking out isolated spots and staying silent during meal times, trying not to think, trying not to wonder. It’s a miracle herself and Coran are alive. She should be grateful, right? She gets what everyone else on her planet doesn’t - more time.

But this life...if it even counts as one. A princess of a dead planet and the leader of a scrappy rebellion against an all-powerful, ten thousand year old enemy, and a blue paladin to boot. She  _ wants _ to be grateful. She wants to be  _ happy _ .

It just doesn’t come. Instead, endless thoughts of her planet, her friends, the people she thought would never leave her...and somehow, she has to figure out how to handle being  _ alone _ .

So alone it’s like she’s freezing up, like all this time she’s been given is just racing past her and she’s stood still, waiting for her parents to bring her out of the cold. But they won’t come, and she, too, will be lost to time.

She has so many duties, so many missions to plan and leaders to speak to and paladins to train… It’s so  _ hard _ to deal with it like this, when there is this gaping hole in her heart the galra scorched out when they destroyed her planet, and she just has to keep on living and working and never, ever thinking about it.

Much like her best friend Greta, Keith is the first person to find her, after far more vargas have passed than she intended. Unlike Greta, however, Keith stumbles into the room quite on accident, then freezes upon seeing her, cross-legged before the window with her mice chasing each other around her statuesque body. “Oh,” he says, “Allura, you- you know everyone’s looking for you, right?”

Shrugging, Allura says, “Are you looking for me?”

“Technically,” he says, and assesses her figure, the slump of her shoulders, the bags beneath her eyes, and promptly sits next to her. Doesn’t say another word, and Allura has nothing else to say. Maybe he could open up about his own parental situation, but she’s glad he doesn’t; glad he understands that in this moment all she needs is peace and quiet.

Together, they observe the stars; out there, terrible things are no doubt still happening, planets under siege, civilians taken prisoner, lives ended without a word, but Allura is immovable. But Keith doesn’t ask her to move. He doesn’t even tell her why everyone’s looking for her. He just sits, and Allura thinks of Greta and Jonas at once, bravery and quiet, how neither quite represent Keith’s social awkwardness or the silliness that sparks up when the day is getting boring.

Before she can thank him for sitting there, the door flies open once more, and this time Lance comes galavanting in, grinning at the sight of them, twisting round and yelling, “Hey Shiro, I found them!”

Keith huffs, but Allura can’t help turning round to watch Shiro enter, too, waving at her before going to Keith’s side and ruffling his hair. Lance makes himself comfortable on Allura’s other side, but she doesn’t mind it for once, because Lance is waving a finger at the mice and watching them jump up to grab it, and before she realises it, Allura’s sputtering with laughter.

“Don’t be so silly, Lance,” she tries to say in a dignified manner, but the mice start climbing on top of each other as Lance dodges their attacks, and for a magnificent moment their tower stands, Chuuchule standing at full height, straining upwards, before Chulatt beneath her starts shaking and the mice topple tragically back to the floor. Shaking her head, Allura scoops them up in her hands and says, “How did you all even find me?”   


“It’s where I would go,” Keith says with a shrug, leaning back on his palms and keeping his eyes on the stars.

Shiro, who’s chosen to lie down and start napping, says, “I thought you might be up here.”

Immediately, Lance jumps in with, “I  _ also _ thought you might be up here. So we came up to check together.”

“Did we?” Shiro says. “I thought you got lost looking for her on your own so you came with me to be safe?”

“You got  _ lost _ ?” Keith asks, raising a brow, and Allura raises a hand to hide her smile.

“I didn’t get  _ lost _ , I went on an adventure. Anyway, do you know how many floors there are in here? Because I went into the elevator and clicked the highest button and you know what? It was a bad idea!”

“ _ All _ your ideas are bad ideas,” Keith mutters.

“No, they’re not,” Allura counters offhandedly, because even Dr. Obi had bad ideas, but they didn’t cancel out his good ideas. Although, to be fair, going to the highest level in a still-unfamiliar venue wasn’t Dr. Obi’s kind of bad idea; that was more Delilah’s arena, running around, chasing always onto some ridiculous quest.

Still, it is just like Lance to latch onto Shiro, even when it’d make more sense for them to split up and find her. He can’t seem to survive without people.

Of course, it’s just like Shiro to let him, forever stood solid as a pillar of stone in the untrustworthy, chaotic sea that threatens to shatter the rest of them to pieces. There is a strength to him that Allura has little seen elsewhere; the kind of weight that clings to the back of a man gone through hell and back. It reminds her, in fact, a little of her own father, near the end of it all.

And sad as that is, it’s also reassuring.

Unlike her father, however, Shiro now rests, eyes closed to the world, unaware of Keith rolling his eyes, Lance laughing to himself, or even Allura, who sits between them all with the mice squeaking stories up at her, and this, she thinks, feels a bit more like the peace she was seeking. Impossible to find alone, though she tried regardless.

It is peaceful, strangely. A little odd, actually, that Keith and Lance aren’t at each others’ necks, but maybe they made a truce for the day? Then again, glancing at them reveals their faces both turned to the stars, eyes both drowning in some emotion Allura can’t articulate. Perhaps they search for Earth with the same yearning Allura searches for Altea with.

Maybe they just think it’s pretty.

She doesn’t ask, doesn’t dare break the silence. That happens very much on its own, when Hunk kicks the door open and brandishes a tray of freshly-cooked muffins at them.

“Sustenance!” he proclaims, and sets it before Allura, squeezes Keith’s shoulder - who looks like he’s found a religion in Hunk’s muffins - and sits so that his head is lain in Lance’s lap, and Lance, as if on instinct, picks up a muffin, breaks a piece off, and feeds it to Hunk.

“Thank you, Hunk,” Allura says a little belatedly. “They look lovely.”   
  
“ _ Oh _ ,” Hunk says after gulping down a bite, “they  _ are _ .”   
  
“They are,” Keith adds, having shoved half of the thing in his mouth already. Lance nods, a muffin in each hand, and Shiro awakens from the dead and grabs three of them in a single hand, looks them all dead in the eye as he does so, then lies back down and feeds himself with his eyes shut.

It doesn’t take long for Pidge to find them, and when she does, she goes straight for the muffins, then lays dramatically on top of Hunk, who’s already on top of Lance, who’s still feeding Hunk.

“Wow,” Pidge says after a hearty bite, “these are really lovely, aren’t they?”   
  
“That’s  _ just _ what I said,” Lance says, and Shiro sticks a thumbs up into the air for three ticks then continues feasting on his muffins. “Where were you?”   


“You guys realise you haven’t told anyone where you are, right? I had to find Coran to show me the security cameras to figure out where you all went.” She rolls her eyes and demolishes the rest of her muffin in a single bite, wiping her crumb-flecked hands on her jeans. “Why are you up here, anyway?”

Allura, unreasonably, finds herself speechless.

“It’s a good view,” Keith says after tick, and a breath of relief pours from her lungs.

“It is,” she says, a little prickly over the question, and what she would’ve had to say if Keith hadn’t spoken; but Pidge nods, and sends a small smile Allura’s way, and it calms her anxiety as a lull in wind calms the sea. “But, where is Coran? He didn’t come with you?”

“Uh, he said he had to get something? I dunno, maybe a pillow so he can take a nap like Shiro.”   
  
“I’m not napping,” Shiro says, “I’m resting my eyes.”

Time passes a little softer after that. Lance pokes at Hunk’s cheeks or annoys Pidge, and Keith curls up and stares at the stars the whole time, and Shiro seems to genuinely fall asleep after twenty doboshes pass, so Allura lets her mice run free around her, watching them, the other paladins, the sky outside.

Everything feels a little less intense when the room is filled with the warmth of five other people, the sound of them breathing and sneezing and eating all but three of Hunk’s muffins. The world of Voltron, of rebels and empires and endless fighting, no longer exists in here. This room is just a room that could exist anywhere, in any time, so long as the occupants remained the same.

But there’s something missing, and it nags at her more and more until Coran finally appears, perhaps a varga or so after Pidge did, holding something in his hands.

“Hello, princess, paladins!” he chirps, smiling at them all and patting Lance’s head. “Sorry I took so long to get here! But I was looking for something - a gift, for the princess, to make this day a little easier.”

“You- you didn’t have to do that, Coran,” Allura says, cheeks flushing at the vulnerability exposed by Coran simply acknowledging that today isn’t a normal day. “Really, I’m quite alright-”   
  
“It took a bit of digging,” he says, “but I finally found it - a  _ camera _ !”

A big, clunky thing, that even the paladins frown at. “Uh - thank you?”   
  
“No, look look look,” Coran says, producing something from his pocket. “It has- these are called  _ films _ , I think you put them in and- right, yes, here we go. Yes, well, you have so many photos with your parents, but the only photos with the paladins are all these dreary formal things that go on the news - I thought perhaps...whenever you wanted to remember something. Make a memory. You should just be able to click, er, I think it’s  _ this _ button here and just… Well, when I tried, the photo came out immediately, but it took a wee dobosh or two to appear on the film. Shall we try?”   
  
Without a word, she takes this camera from him. Films, and the button he mentioned, although there appear to be more. It’s true, she has many photos from when she was younger - photos with her teacher, best friend, parents, everyone she really liked at all, almost as if she knew what was coming and wanted to preserve every face, every memory.

And here she is again, facing the same situation.

“Yes,” she says, and stands up. “Yes, you go sit there with the mice, and- no, no one else move, just stay like that. And...this button… Okay…”

She goes to the door, so she can take a photo of them all, Keith staring ahead and Coran’s head bent a little as he speaks with the mice, Shiro still half-asleep, Pidge and Hunk’s figures slumped onto someone else. Just a tick before she takes the photo, Lance rests his head on Coran’s shoulder, and, hands shaking, Allura raises the camera.

She doesn’t want for the photo to come out; instead, she repositions herself in the front corner of the room so she can see their faces this time, and takes another photo, holding the two films in one hand and the camera in the other.

Coran nudges to the side to make space for Allura to sit, taking the camera for her as she frowns down at the blank films.

Little by little, however, the images begin to form - in one, six people sat before a magnificent sky; in the other, six people, magnificent.

It is only then, as the images grow more precise, that Allura realises something she had not before; everyone is wearing something pink. Coran has a pink flower pinned to his uniform. Pidge wears a pink top beneath her unzipped hoodie. Hunk wears a bracelet of shining pink jewels on his wrist. Lance’s socks are pink. Keith has tied a pink bandana round his neck. Shiro’s dyed the white streak of his hair pink.

How did Allura not notice that? So consumed in her grief, in watching the paladins congregate around her without thinking why, without daring to wonder if they knew, or suspected, or  _ pitied _ her.

But here they are, in pink, mourning for her planet alongside her even if they didn’t say so.

“Oh, princess, are you quite alright? Here, let me take these for you.” The films taken from her hands. An arm wrapping round her, a hand on her shoulder, her knee, her back.

“Wh-what’s wrong? What’s wr-wrong with you all?” she says, but her breath does something strange - her voice shatters like glass around the words she tries to speak.

“It’s okay,” Coran says, and holds her tightly to his chest, “it’s okay, princess. We’re right here. We’re all right here.”

The paladins, all wrapped around her and Coran, the simple comfort of a body against another, proof that one isn’t as alone as one thinks.

Eventually, they sit arranged around Allura, holding her hand, touching her knee, holding her close. Hunk starts drawing in his sketchbook, and Allura holds those two photos close, physical evidence that she has a family again, a blood and flesh  _ family _ who  _ love _ her, and want to protect her, and will mourn with her even if she refuses to tell them she’s mourning at all.

Because that’s what family do. Allura is scared, and alone, and  _ sad _ , and though they said nothing of her loss, of the behemoth of pain she carries, they sat by her side, and silently carried it with her.

The burden isn’t so heavy after that.

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks again to the [cosmic dust zine](https://cosmicdustzine.tumblr.com/) for allowing me to participate, it rly means a lot since it's my first ever zine and there was such an array of excellent artists and writers involved. thanks also to my dear friend [anna](https://lujanne.tumblr.com/) , one of the mods who invited me to join!
> 
> if you enjoyed, please let me know! otherwise, thanks for reading !


End file.
